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Albino cactus (scale) 1977
from the scale series 1977–81
ink transfer on silk, synthetic
polymer paint on composition
board, mirrorised synthetic
polymer film, electric light,
wood, rubber tyre
88.7 x 442.1 x 122.0 cm
National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra
Purchased 1978
the most famous of which is a stuffed goat (Monogram
1953–59). The Gallery’s Albino cactus (scale) with its
combination of two-dimensional photographic imagery
and three-dimensional found objects can be considered a
late ‘Combine’ work.
A ‘found’ tyre in Albino cactus (scale) is incorporated
into Rauschenberg’s artistic expression, but it cannot be
completely detached from its life spirit. The Duchampian
displacement of the found object from life, and its
subsequent transference to art, creates something akin to a
split personality; that is, all found objects bring with them a
history and/or pre-function which the artist allows to seep
into the composition. Thus, in a collaborative encounter
with his material, Rauschenberg becomes a choreographer
of the historical meaning and value of the found object.
The images collaged along the material panel
backdrop of Albino cactus (scale) have been printed via a
solvent-transfer process – a technique that Rauschenberg
began to experiment with in 1959. However, the look of
Albino cactus (scale) also recalls Rauschenberg’s many
screenprinted paintings, first explored by the artist in 1962.
(It was at the same time that Andy Warhol also adopted
the screenprinting technique and the two artists traded
ideas about the method.) The solvent-transfer process and
screenprinting technique liberated Rauschenberg’s work.
With both forms of printmaking, the artist discovered ways
in which he could quickly and repetitively transfer his found
imagery to the canvas of his paintings and Combines.
Rauschenberg believed that the printmaking technique
of lithography was old-fashioned and is notorious for
having stated that ‘the second half of the twentieth
century is no time to start writing on rocks’. Ironically,
it is Rauschenberg who became a significant figure in
the resurrection of American printmaking that occurred
during the 1960s. He has subsequently worked with
many leading print workshops to create more than 800
published editions. Printmaking is a technique perfectly
suited to his methodology of layering found images and
one which gave him total control over the size and scale of
each component image. It was through printmaking that
Rauschenberg was able to once again blur the distinctions
between media and perfectly unite his obsessive use of the
photographic image with painterly techniques.
One of the most successful of Rauschenberg’s
collaborations has been with the Gemini GEL print
workshop – a printmaking partnership that permanently
changed the terrain of American printmaking. The artist’s
highly experimental approach to print processes comes to
the fore in the colour lithograph and screenprint Booster,
created in 1967. For Booster, Rauschenberg decided to
use a life-sized X-ray portrait of himself combined with
an astrological chart, magazine images of athletes, the
image of a chair and the images of two power drills.
Printer Kenneth Tyler was a masterful facilitator for